Page 78 of Fated to Monsters

“What’s the plan again?” I ask her, the details of it blurring in my head now that we’re actually here.

“Everest said there’s a group of insurgents in the north that we could rally. The goal is to make contact with them.” Wren pulls a compass out of her pocket. The little dial moves and rocks, but then settles itself into position. “This way.” She rises to her feet and reaches down.

I latch onto her and allow her to help me up. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” She presses her fingers to the wound on her neck. The one that was reopened last night. “It’s hot so I’m guessing it’s on.”

“Are you in pain?” I hadn’t considered what else that mark entailed outside of it alerting demons to her whereabouts. Perhaps I would have been more hesitant about Bo not coming along had I known it would cause her pain.

“No,” she says. “It’s fine.”

The same thing I had said to her when she asked me how I was yesterday.

I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t telling the truth either.

Is that what she’s doing now?

I couldn't have answered her truthfully even if I wanted to. I don't know how to explain how I am. Nothing is technically wrong. But I keep having these vivid nightmares that feel more like long-forgotten memories than dreams. Some of them cause actual physical discomfort, and some tear at my heartstrings more than others. They've made me question reality a bit more, but overall, it isn't anything I can't handle on my own. Wren has enough going on, and my bad night’s sleep is nothing she should concern herself with.

“You still have the button Tremont made for you, right?” Wren dusts her legs off and examines the compass again.

“Yeah, do you?”

She pats her pocket and nods. "This way." Wren navigates us through the wooded area we're surrounded by.

A chill creeps up my back at how strangely eerie and quiet it is here.

Prania has never been a place of much commotion, but generally, there are other demons or hunters making some kind of noise.

We walk side by side for a few minutes, our footsteps crinkling against the ground. Wren’s are softer than mine—her stealth hunter nature doing what it can to conceal her presence.

I do what I can to match her movements, but I’d need years of training to be as sly as her.

“What if we come across demons first?” I whisper.

“We reason with them.” She continues forward. “There will be no more demon bloodshed.”

I never thought I’d see the day when a hunter as fierce as Wren would put a stop to the unjust killings. This life is all I’ve known and for my entire time in Prania, there wasn’t a single hunter that didn’t want to kill either of my friends. And they would have done the same to me the second they found out I wasn’t on their side. There was no reasoning with them. The only thing they were capable of was ending demons and nothing else.

Wren throws her arm out in front of me, stopping dead in her tracks. Her intense gaze meets mine, a silent warning to not make a sound. She looks past me, turns her head, and stares behind her. “Something is coming,” she mutters enough for me to hear.

I barely have time to blink when a blur flashes across my vision, tackling Wren to the ground many feet away from where she just was.

Her scream pierces through my chest, and I can’t possibly move fast enough to get to her.

A large, off-white wolf-like creature pins her to the ground, its teeth snapping at her neck as she holds it off the best she can. She keeps her arms extended and her head to the side to avoid its ferocious bite.

I run toward her and do the only thing I can think of—I leap toward it, hoping the weight of my blow will knock it off her and give her a chance to escape. The beast can tear me to shreds but I refuse to allow it to hurt another hair on her beautiful head.

I throw my arms around the wolf’s torso and pull with all my might.

The two of us spin and hit the ground hard, dust flying up around us.

“Run!” I yell at Wren before the thing tosses me aside and sets its sights back on her.

It bears down, scraping at the dirt with its claws as it snarls at her, its mouth salivating.

Wren throws up her arms. “I’m not here to harm you. Please see that.”

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